By my count there have been around 14 shark attacks in Australia in 2026.
Two (I think) have been fatal and the rest have involved serious injuries.
The result is a renewed call for a shark ‘cull.’
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph James Morrow said: ‘It is bizarre that it has to be repeated, but sharks are not our friends.’
He goes on to call for a cull of bull sharks and great white sharks in Australians waters.
And, according to some reports, the Minns government in New South Wales is seriously thinking about doing this—despite the outcry from the Greenies who think that sharks matter more than people.
The word ‘cull’ in this context means to select and kill. ‘Cull’ is recorded in English from around 1330, and it came from an Old French word meaning ‘to take, to select.’
Quite often we use the word ‘cull’ in a non-lethal manner, as when we take a long list of job applicants and ‘cull’ the list down to the most likely.
Mind you, lethality if often intended when we ‘cull.’
The state government is currently ‘culling’ brumbies in the Snowy Mountain National Part—shooting them from helicopters, leaving them bleeding and dying a slow death.
Well, what’s good enough for harmless brumbies is good enough for sharks—that will either take your arm or leg, or else take your life.
The worst nonsense I ever heard from talkback callers on my radio show was this rubbish about the ocean being ‘their (the sharks’) territory not ours.’
Nonsense.
For countless thousands of years human beings have owned and used the kilometre or so of ocean closest to the shoreline—where we have paddled canoes, swum and fished.
Time to start killing those sharks, folks!
People matter more than great whites.
That is what makes the word ‘cull’ so useful in these circumstances.
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